NASSCO BOOM TO ADD 1,000 JOBS

The gloom is lifting at General Dynamics-NASSCO, where the company is beginning one of its biggest expansions in years, with plans to add about 1,000 workers who will help keep the San Diego shipbuilder humming at least through 2016.

NASSCO had been shedding jobs due to a lack of commercial work and uncertainty about how much money the Navy would pay for the repair of warships. But there’s been a reversal of fortune, with NASSCO winning contracts to build at least two container ships and four tankers for industry. Navy ship repair also has returned to normal, for the moment. And the long-term picture looks better; NASSCO is competing for the right to build up to 17 large Navy oiler ships, a program that would last eight to 15 years, depending on how it is structured.

Marine industry analyst Tim Colton says on his widely read blog that the Navy oiler contract is “their program to lose,” meaning that NASSCO is better positioned to win than its two competitors, Huntington Ingalls and VT Halter Marine.

The near-term focus is on building container ships for TOTE and product carriers for an affiliate of American Petroleum Tankers (APT).

“We’ll need to bring about 1,000 people back in,” said NASSCO President Fred Harris. “That includes both skilled tradesmen and other salaried people. The vast majority are tradesmen.”

NASSCO has 3,000 workers, one of the lowest figures in the past 20 years. The figure would have slipped even more if the company hadn’t won contracts from the Navy to build four Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) vessels, a new class of ship that will enable the Navy to pre-position equipment, vehicles and supplies at sea. The vessel has been nicknamed the “pier at sea.”

NASSCO has completed the first of the MLPs — Montford Point — which left San Diego on Friday. The second MLP — John H. Glenn — is nearing completion. And work has begun on the third, the Lewis B. Puller. At the Navy’s request, NASSCO also has been doing design work on the third and fourth MLPs, to make the ships more versatile. Those vessels will be capable of handling a wide variety of helicopters, and housing and deploying special forces.

Much of the design work is occurring at NASSCO’s Mission Valley engineering center, where engineers are also working on double-hulled tankers for APT.

“My mission in life today is to get these (TOTE and APT) designs as early as we can so we can get clicking as early as we can,” said Harris, who became president of NASSCO in 2006 and led the company back to profitability that same year.

Harris also is trying to persuade the Navy to move up the time frame for building the new oilers, saying, “We would be able to feather in the (oiler) program immediately after finishing the last MLP.”

NASSCO would first have to win the contract, and it is facing two tough competitors. Harris acknowledged that but promised to press on, looking for contracts anywhere he can find them.